Rocket Feature : The Circus : Indian Rocket

1.Hey Arsh, Thanks for the interview. So, how has the scene been treating you?
The scene’s been treating the band pretty ok, comes with its shares of highs and lows, so you’ve got a couple of great gigs, then a bad one, then none at all, then another couple of gigs, so it’s a bit of a frustratingly enjoyable rollercoaster really, where we oscillate from being really happy to really not so happy and wanting more.

2. Alright so first for those who don't know, tell us how the circus came together and why the name the circus?

The Circus came together in sometime spring 2007, when Abhinav had just joined the band after Anshul, Abhishek and me were left with no bass player after the breakup of our previous band (which sucked balls incidentally) and started jamming on random material. The first three months were spent just jamming out random parts till we reached some sort of a sound , and in july 2007 after we were a little more certain of ourselves we played our first gig, which incidentally sucked like everyone’s first gig.

The name “the circus” came about just before our first gig when i was sick of thinking of what band name we should keep for us, so i just sent in the name “the circus” to the event organizer and got posters made out of it, and since then it just stuck, more out of sheer frustrated coincidence than persistent deep thought.

3.Your album 'From Space' has been in the pipeline for a really long time. Any plans on disclosing the release date?

“From Space” was finished as a recording product almost a year ago, and since then due to circumstances which were generally in the realm of the unfortunate it got pushed further and further down the date lane, and its almost a year later and the album still isn’t out.

But on a brighter note, the launch is expected to be quite big, the packaging and the cd looks fantastic, and It’s a lot better product now than what it was let’s say six months ago, so as a product it should come out in great shape.
As for the release date we had planned early april but realised that everyone’s exams would be on so the date got further pushed down, I’m afraid of sounding like the boy who cried wolf here but the album should be out in the first half of may, and I’m hoping enough people turn up for the launch even after such a long delay in the proceedings.

4.You guys are signed onto Grey and Saurian. How has working with them been?

Grey and Saurian has probably been the best thing to have happened to us in the last one year, the management has constantly pushed us into becoming better as musicians, has constantly brainstormed with us and looked out after the best interests of the band. They’ve gotten us shows, figured out our PR and networking, and helped us understand the logistics of being in a band and trying to get an album out, I have seen Shashwat , Ashwin , Anupam and Keshav working their asses off and i hope us as a band haven’t disappointed them in our delivery towards their work.So all in all it’s been a great experience working with them and I hope this partnership continues into bigger things in the future.

5.The circus has been experimental with their sound. What do you keep in mind or how do you go about writing the guitar parts? What all have you drawn influences from?

Well, we haven’t really tried to be experimental as far as our sound goes, we just naturally enjoy whatever lies inside the halo of the weird,eccentric and slightly nonsensical. Our jams generally end up being long pieces where tangents are drawn to every piece of music we create so as to reach an odd perplexing conclusion which surprises even us at times. That generally keeps things fresh, and since we don’t really like to confine ourselves to a sound or style it helps us reach out into the realm of the strange and grab hold of an odd yet tasty musical recipe from there.

As far as my guitar parts go, I generally try to be a subservient to the song, where my parts are made exactly for the song in mind without trying to be too flashy or masturbatory with the guitar parts, I generally also have a large bank of effects and a lot of songs are made around these effects,most of which are skewed at absurdly unbalanced parameters, and new patches generally lead to new songs in our scenario. If something we make sounds a little strange then it is generally kept as a part of a song.

As far as influences i think contradictions, randomness, radiohead, the mars volta, grapes, are some of the leading influences in our sound, although i don’t think we sound like any of the aforementioned bands or fruits in question.

6.You guys entered launchpad. Any 'behind the scenes' memory that you would like to share with us?

Launchpad was a lot of fun and not even one tenth as bitchy as it was made out to be. Well, most of the times we were not on camera we were sitting around chilling with the other band members and producers.

One moment I still remember from the launchpad season is that of the Demonstealer running behind our drummer with a guitar in his hand, serenading him while our drummer ate chholas and kept running. There were a lot of fun moments which were shared and a lot of them involved doing and smoking things which we weren’t supposed to, so let’s just remember the Demonstealer running and be done with it.

7.Are you happy with where the band has reached till now?

I am happy with where the band has reached till now but i think we aren’t even one-fifth of where we would like to be, right now shows abroad, at least three more albums,a lot more shows and doing this professionally with a decent standard of living is what we’re aiming for at the minimum, from there lets see where the road takes us. Hopefully, it involves a lot of music and a lot of partying while we’re at it.

8.As a band, do you feel you've progressed well?

I think we’ve progressed well in the sense that we’ve written a lot of songs, have become tighter and tighter with our shows, learnt from our mistakes and gone a step ahead into where we want to be as a band.

Once “From space” is out we’re probably back in the studio recording our second album for which the tracks have already been written and I’m looking forward to the album being released and the next album being tracked this year the most as of now.